Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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10ebbor10 said:
Only if you consider triggerint the riot as being the only crime of note in this incident.

To illustrate the point a bit better. Imagine if instead of trying to non-lethal, we ordered our forces to fire into the crowd. Or, to exaggerate for the sake of the argument, if we'd ordered our forces to burn the city. Would that be his fault?

My point is, do the consequences of our orders fall on him because his actions helped create the situation and put us in command, or do they fall on the people who gave them?
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They fall on him because he was in charge. That he was struck down has nothing to do with it because his decisions led to him being struck down and forcing a much more junior officer to pick up the slack.

And as Simon Jester noted, Haruna did not grossly mismanage the situation. She was engaged in combat, the officer in charge just went down to a potentially lethal blow and her decision was to minimize the escalation as much as possible while evacuating as quickly as possible. Had there been a moment for Haruna to get away from the immediacy of the decisions she needed to make the situation would be different, as it would've been if she had ordered the burning of the town.

Had she decided to fire into the crowd instead of fixing bayonets, well, that would not have been an illegal order. It would've been an incorrect order, but by the laws of war it would've been entirely within her right.

Rat King said:
We could've found a polite, face-saving way to say "Oh, no, we have a schedule to keep" and moved on; we didn't. Ienga would've lived with that. We could've done many things differently. We didn't.
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She did exactly that. Ienaga didn't listen and instead indulged the reporters.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
@open_sketchbook

Okay, let me be open about this. Does Akitsukuni have that the cultural thing the Japanese have where it's a no-no to be open and blunt to a superior officer, and when your boss makes a mistake you're supposed to inform him subtly and politely so that he doesn't lose face in public?

...

Because if so, then... Well, Rat King, this is the point I made before. If he doesn't want to, or isn't mentally equipped to, take subtle hints from junior officers, he is unfit to lead in the context of this culture. Blaming ourselves for not saying "I think this is a bad idea, sir" in a society where telling a senior officer "I think this is a bad idea, sir" in so many words is a humiliating slap in the face to their authority... Well, it doesn't make sense.

Now, maybe Akitsukuni is a lot blunter than real Japan, and that changes things. I dunno.
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So I'm not @open_sketchbook (though I am ALSO a QM in this quest) but the culture of Akitsukuni is very similar to the Japanese in a lot of ways, though you do have more leeway in like, talking to people in ways that might be considered out of turn because in most cases you are a social superior even if they're technically superior to you. Also he's an Army officer so if you were outspoken to him about it no one in the Navy at least would fault you. :p
 
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Rat King said:
"Look, I'm just an officer, you can't expect me to do things or take responsibility."
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Someone else was taking responsibility at the moment, that's one of the wonders of the chain of command, when the boss is on site they call the shots, not us.

What part of 'he was in charge, not us, and we didn't even get to vote on this stupid decision' is so hard to grasp anyways?
 
Simon_Jester said:
Because if so, then... Well, Rat King, this is the point I made before. If he doesn't want to, or isn't mentally equipped to, take subtle hints from junior officers, he is unfit to lead in the context of this culture. Blaming ourselves for not saying "I think this is a bad idea, sir" in a society where telling a senior officer "I think this is a bad idea, sir" in so many words is a humiliating slap in the face to their authority... Well, it doesn't make sense.

Now, maybe Akitsukuni is a lot blunter than real Japan, and that changes things. I dunno.
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You make a good point. People are never going to vote to go against the press anyway.

[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
Rat King said:
Is that a message we want to send?
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Is "the one female officer fucked up the moment she was in command" the one you want to send?
Rat King said:
Further, a subordinate "falling on their sword" for the sake of their superiors is something that happens in this culture; if it would save the face of the Navy, us accepting blame is entirely in keeping with the warrior ethos and spirit we are aspiring to live up to.
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Problem is when you fall on your sword, you fall on your sword.

I see little reason to do so when we managed the situation as well as we could have.
 
[X] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.

Good arguements here- I like Hazard's in particular. I do have to go with the captain: he was the one in a position to stop this, and he didn't. The princess is responsible for people dying because she gave the order, the fascist press is responsible for risking a riot to make a point, and the rioters who threw stones (and I do mean this in the most restrictive sense- they and only they amoung the crowd) are responsible for escalating the situation to bloodshed.

But the person who looked at the whole thing and thought "sure, we've got a few spare minutes, why not?" is most definitely to blame overall. I don't even feel that bad about throwing him under the bus- this whole thing was basically him ordering the princess to do a favor for the purity club, and that *should* mean he owns the consequences.

Purity Club is more Navy than army as well, right? Poisoning the army against them would be doing good work here- if they get asked for future favors and think 'those bastards are using us and are going to throw us under the bus' that's better than 'oh sure! We are all about glorious military might together, right?'. Even if this leans a bit more Navy v army than purity club v army.

As a side note, we can and should push any expressions of that potential vendetta up to the captain. He'll be a pretty reliable bet to instigate and inflame, and he is a true-blue purity club supporter. Plus we have the excuse that the captain is responsible for the ensign, not vice versa. We just need to let him own the fallout while separating the princess from him publicly and ideologically.
 
065tdsa said:
Someone else was taking responsibility at the moment, that's one of the wonders of the chain of command, when the boss is on site they call the shots, not us.

What part of 'he was in charge, not us, and we didn't even get to vote on this stupid decision' is so hard to grasp anyways?
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"I wasn't in charge, I was just... in charge during the part where 30 people got killed."
 
[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.

10ebbor10 said:
1) We didn't consider the possibility of warning shots.
2) We didn't keep sufficient control of our men, causing them to go stabbing jn the chaos.
3) We didn't shelter in the palace, were the crowd may not have done a thing.
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1) If we had fired warning shots and the crowd hadn't dispersed, we would have been forced to do one of three things. Firstly, we might have had to fire into the crowd, because if you escalate to make a threat display and they don't back down, you have a lot less options than before you escalated. Secondly, we could have had our troops wade into the crowd with bayonets fixed and rounds chambered, in which case at least some of our men would almost certainly have shot rioters in self-defense, and possibly triggered an overall massacre. And thirdly, we could have retreated into the palace, on which more later.

2) It is not realistically possible to "maintain control" of men such that they do not stab with their bayonets when they are being assaulted or think they are being assaulted. Reread the post. Our troops didn't break ranks or riot or lose order. But by the very nature of our trying to force our way through a large crowd with bayonets, there was some close-quarters pushing, shoving, and fighting

3) If we had sheltered in place we MIGHT HAVE been safe, but on the other hand:
3a) We would have had to divide up our men among multiple rooms throughout the palace and controlling them would have been harder.
3b) It's entirely possible that the rioters would have tried to burn the palace down around our ears, or stormed it if we weren't shooting to keep them away. If we'd started shooting we'd have killed dozens more people; if they stormed the palace we might all have been beaten to death by an angry mob.
3c) Even if we'd kept the crowd at bay from inside the palace, some outside force would have had to mobilize to relieve us, and then THEY would have wound up confronting an even bigger and angrier mob, and bloodshed could have ensued.

Please do not portray 'shelter in the palace' as so obviously correct and brilliant a decision that only an incompetent officer would fail to choose it over the alternative of 'fix bayonets and fight your way to the trucks for evacuation.'

Rat King said:
"Look, I'm just an officer, you can't expect me to do things or take responsibility."
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This is getting tiresome.

If ENSIGN Arisukawa can be expected to make rational decisions and take responsibility for her actions, on account of being a military officer, so can CAPTAIN Ienaga. Moreover, because of how military rank structures work, ultimately an ensign is not responsible for somehow maneuvering a captain into making the right decisions in spite of himself. Indeed, it's the other way around. It is expected that ensigns will be green, inexperienced, maybe even (gasp) still learning their jobs. Whereas captains have a few years of seasoning and experience under their belts, and are supposed to know how to avoid accidentally walking into a fucking disaster area.
 
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Rat King said:
"I wasn't in charge, I was just... in charge during the part where 30 people got killed."
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We weren't in charge until after the catastrophic decision that caused this fiasco had been made, at which point we handled it pretty well by the standards expected of us. The only reason we ended up in charge is the man who used to be in change fucked up so severely he almost died.
 
[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
 
Rat King said:
"I wasn't in charge, I was just... in charge during the part where 30 people got killed."
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Where she acted entirely in accordance to the rules by making sure that those people were not her own.

The situation was terrible and she salvaged it the best way she could've. The only theoretically better option would've been to retreat, but all that would've done is escalate the riots and ensure the deployment of the army and navy to suppress them.

Violently. For threatening an Imperial Princess.
 
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Lets put this in perspective: if we ordered the soldiers to open fire on the crowd, there would still be plenty of people saying we were completely justified in doing so.

Remember that the sailors didn't even blink in setting up a freaking machine gun to shoot striking laborers.

In the context we are inserted, we were extraordinarily merciful, and the exit without serious harm to ourselves and the soldiers we commanded showed competence and a clear, calm head.
Rat King said:
Blood is still on her hands.
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And it's not her fault. Your point?
 
Simon_Jester said:
This is getting tiresome.

If ENSIGN Arisukawa can be expected to make rational decisions and take responsibility for her actions, on account of being a military officer, so can CAPTAIN Ienaga. Moreover, because of how military rank structures work, ultimately an ensign is not responsible for somehow maneuvering a captain into making the right decisions in spite of himself. Indeed, it's the other way around. It is expected that ensigns will be green, inexperienced, maybe even (gasp) still learning their jobs. Whereas captains have a few years of seasoning and experience under their belts, and are supposed to know how to avoid accidentally walking into a fucking disaster area.
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Captain Ienga has his own report to write. And perhaps he'll take responsibility. We don't know.

But we should and can take responsibility for our own part in it instead of throwing our hands up and saying "I was a victim of circumstance."

TotallyNotEvil said:
And it's not her fault. Your point?
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How is it not? She still metaphorically pulled the trigger.
 
[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
 
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Rat King said:
We weren't, though. There were actions we could have taken and things we could have done; refusing to acknowledge that doesn't help us.
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Actions which we analyzed, debated, and ultimately found unwise.

Each option had its downsides and upsides. In the end, we took as good a decision as we could have been expected to make, and were as merciful as we were allowed to be and still fulfill our duty.
 
[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.

This plot-line has really brought out the worst in people. It's pretty clearly supposed to be "Hey, maybe imperialism is bad and people shouldn't do that." and it's sometimes being read as "Obviously, resisting imperialism is bad and people shouldn't do that."

I view the most important thing here as moving towards an understanding of imperialism being bad in character, even if it means taking the fall for this, damage to our career and crippling self-doubt for a while.
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
Actions which we analyzed, debated, and ultimately found unwise.

Each option had its downsides and upsides. In the end, we took as good a decision as we could have been expected to make, and were as merciful as we were allowed to be and still fulfill our duty.
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I mean, we as voters did.

The Princess, not actually being a hive-mind, did not. :V
 
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